COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

622 COSMOS.
tion assumed by this study in its scientific establishment on
the basis of experiment.
It still remains
briefly to consider
the influence exercised by the revival of classical literature, at
the close of the fourteenth century, on the deepest sources of
the mental life of nations, and, therefore, on the general con-
templation of the universe. The individuality of certain
highly-gifted men had contributed to increase the rich mass
of facts possessed by the world of ideas. The susceptibility
of a freer intellectual development already existed when Greek
literature, driven from its ancient seats, acquired a firm footing
in western lands, under the favouring action of apparently
accidental relations.
The Arabs in their classical studies hacl remained strangers
to all that appertains to the inspiration of language ; then-
studies being limited to a very small number of the writers
of antiquity, and in accordance with their strong national
predilection for natural investigation, principally to the physical
books of Aristotle, to the Almagest of Ptolemy, the bota-
nical and chemical treatises of Dioscorides, and the cosmological
fancies of Plato. The dialectics of Aristotle were blended
by the Arabs with the study of Physics, as in earlier times, in
the Christian mediaeval age they were with that of theology.
Men borrowed from the ancients what they judged susceptible
of special application, but they were far removed from appre-
hending the spirit of Hellenism in its general character, from
penetrating to the depths of the organic structure of the lan-
guage, from deriving enjoyment from the poetic creations of
the Greek imagination, or of seeking to trace the marvellous
luxuriance displayed in the fields of oratory and historical
composition.
Almost two hundred years before Petrarch and Boccacio,
John of Salisbury and the Platonic Abelard had already exer-
cised a favourable influence with reference to an acquaintance
with certain works of classical antiquity. Both possessed the
in which freedom
power of appreciating the charm of writings
and order, nature and mind, \vere constantly associated
together ; but the influence of the aesthetic feeling awakened
by them, vanished without leaving a trace, and the actual merit
of having prepared in Italy a permanent resting place for the
muses exiled from Greece, and of having contributed most
powerfully to re-establish classical literature, belongs of right to